Greece to issue biometric card tender
05 February 2018 17:24 GMT

Greece plans to announce a tender in coming days for a biometric ID card.

Government officials will subsequently launch talks with representatives of seven or eight companies that have expressed an interest in producing the new ID cards, sources told Kathimerini.

Greek authorities are accelerating the process ahead of the anticipated arrival in Athens this month of a delegation from the US Department of Homeland Security, which is to assess the extent of Greece’s enforcement of Washington’s visa waiver program (VWP).

(The scheme allows citizens of 38 countries, including Greece, to travel to the US without a visa.)

Although both Greek and US officials have dissociated the VWP from Greek identity cards, the failure of Greek authorities to replace the current cards with new ones bearing biometric data on a microchip is an issue of concern for Washington.

As a member-state of the European Union, Greece has been obliged since 2000 to upgrade its ID cards but has yet to overhaul the current system.

The cost of upgrading existing ID cards is estimated at around 80 million euros.